It Ends Tonight
by fantacination
Summary: “How long do I have?” Ciel’s right eye throbs like a fluttering heart. The red string that had always hung between him and Sebastian, tenuous, thickens into rope into chain. The last two hours of Ciel Phantomhive's life, Sebastian/Ciel


**It Ends Tonight **

_Fantacination_

Disclaimer: Kuroshitsuji and all related characters and ideas belong to Toboso Yana.

The last resounding thud of a cut-stone horse on an ice-marble chessboard echoes in his mind.

Right under it is the sound of creaking metal closing, and the thunk of wooden coffins. The Undertaker would be pleased. Sebastian had been creative, towards the end. The blood of the men who'd taken him, who'd murdered his family and burned his home to the ground are all still seeping into the expensive, restored carpet. He thinks there's probably an eyeball, somewhere, rolling to a corner, it's shocked green iris wide. Scotland Yard will have to clean up. They might even do a good job covering it up, for a change. He won't be there to catch their mistakes any longer.

The white crown shatters as it hits the floor, and the black one comes tumbling after.

"How long do I have?" Ciel's right eye throbs like a fluttering heart. The red string that had always hung between him and Sebastian, tenuous, thickens into rope into chain.

"Until the sun sets." And if that smile is more demonic than usual, Ciel doesn't look away.

Instead, he tilts his head back, staring at the gathering cobwebs of shadow at the ceiling. He has an hour, maybe two. "Then you better get me ready, don't you?"

There is no pretense. There never was, of heaven or hell. Of the soul he'd sold. No pleas of morality or bargaining with a God who didn't exist. What use were those? What use was God? Or the angels who pretended to serve Heaven?

Smiling, Sebastian slides the blood-splattered silk waistcoat off. Nimble fingers undo the snaps that ran up the spine of the tattered white ruffled shirt, smooth out the tense lines at his shoulders.

"There is no turning back," Sebastian murmurs, his hands clamping down like irons on Ciel's thin shoulders; his elegant mouth brushing against the tender curve of his ear.

Ciel merely looks at him, daring him to say anything else.

"A reminder, nothing more."

"I've never had any intention of running away."

Sebastian's hands slide down Ciel's body, undoing the buttons at his pants, letting his master step out of the garment when it fell around his ankles. The shoes come next. Then, the elaborate, lace-edged thigh-high socks.

When he presses his lips to an ankle, Ciel only glares.

The rest are just deft movements in the quiet, meticulous and almost reverent, and the sigh of silk sliding down skin. Until Ciel is standing before him, naked but for the rings on his fingers and the patch over his eye. The boy shivers, slightly, in the cold. But his uncovered eye is level when it meets Sebastian's intent gaze.

Sebastian's smile is slow and real. Reaching around Ciel, he uncovers the glowing right eye, the eye patch's ties neatly wound and settled on the desk beside clothes. "Is there anything else, my lord?"

Ciel looks at the rings. The Fragment of Hope that Lizzie had gotten him flares with life from the dying sun. Lizzie, who has always been his last link to the halcyon past. Lizzie, whom he is leaving behind. She will cry, he knows. The way she had when the manor first burned down. _Lizzie, please have a good life._ With one of the nicer noblemen, maybe even a duke. Someone who'd happily lead her through the steps of every dance as he could not. _Don't ever walk where I have. Goodbye._

Then there is the Phantomhive Crest, broken and reforged, heavier on his hand with each passing day. Funtom Company, Tanaka, Bard, Maylene, and Finian. He'd left a place for them all in his will. With luck, none of them would have to go back to where they'd come from. The last three were idiots, but they'd been _his_ idiots. And he'd accepted them as his household the day he found them, desperate to change their life. The way he'd changed his.

And behind them is the ghost of his father, his mother beside him. Are they disappointed in their son? He wonders, sometimes. What would have been if only he had succumbed to dying a senseless death at the hands of delusional occultists.

_I am sorry. I love you. I cannot be with you. _

He slides the rings off his fingers and drops them to the floor. One of them lands in a ligament. Or maybe those were guts. It will seem like he vanished, he supposes, leaving gore-splattered clothes and rings in a heap. Maybe they'll think he had been reclaimed by God, never guessing he'd been spirited away into Hell.

The setting sun is already flickering over the horizon. When it sets he will leave everything behind, with the rings and the clothes and the memories.

Now it's just him and his butler, the demon.

"Take me." This will be the last order.

"Yes," Sebastian whispers, and he leans Ciel back, a little, his teeth nicking the skin on his throat. He can feel Ciel's heart thumping with the desperate efforts of life. Even if all it had ever been was borrowed time.

The kiss is long, quiet, deep. It's a kiss that does not answer; does not gentle. Ciel's lips are petal-soft and firm under his own. The soft, vulnerable skin yielding under hands that were still used to having claws.

There's a gasp when he feels the curse consummate. The sun sets; the darkness blankets. And he can feel it. It's like ice and loss, rapidly washing over his body. Warmth drains from his lips. If he had the breath it might've been funny. Who would have thought his soul can be so warm?

His body crumples into Sebastian's arms and he's closer to anyone than he'd ever been; lighter than he'd ever been. And he can still feel the warmth of the kiss on his dying lips.

…_Will I still exist?_

The low voice that answers is unmistakable. _Of course, you and I will always be together. For eternity until the end._

_Heh. You really lie so well, Sebastian._

_I do not lie. Ciel._

And then there is just the demon, alone in a corpse-filled room.

_~fin~_


End file.
